A man/ a woman recites all the stories of the world in a loud voice. When she is done, all the stories, all men and women, all time and all places will have passed through her lips.

All the Stories

weblog

All The Stories weblog is born as a new format for the collection All The Stories, on line since 2001. This weblog wants to add a clear time structure to the original collection (the rhythm of the story writing) and to give to the readers of All The Stories the possibility to be as well its writers and commentators.

An Israelite man traveling with his concubine refuses to lodge in a foreign city, “that is not of the children of Israel”; He heads instead to the next Israelite town, where the locals attempt to rape him, and do in fact rape and slaughter his concubine. In retaliation, the people of Israel massacre the entire tribe of Benjamin, leaving only a handful of survivors so that there will not be “one tribe lacking in Israel”.

China”s one-child policy, and a traditional preference for male heirs, has led many couples to try to ensure that their single offspring is a boy. Some pay for illegal ultrasound tests to discover the sex of a foetus, and abort it if it is female.

Archeologists believe they may have found the remains of two children of Russia”s last tsar, executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Ceramic vessels found nearby appear to have contained sulphuric acid, consistent with an account by one of the Bolshevik firing squad, who said that after shooting the family they doused the bodies in acid to destroy the flesh and prevent them becoming objects of veneration.

47 million files hold meticulously recorded information on forced labourers, concentration camp victims and political prisoners. In grey, bureaucratic language the Nazis kept records on the smallest details – from the number of lice on a prisoner”s head to the exact moment of their execution.

Bulgarian society is still divided on whether anyone should bear moral responsibility for the communist past and, if so, who. Few believe the new commission charged with opening the archives will act impartially.